Archetype
by Cymoril Avalon
Summary: Redemption and rebirth, two nonexistent items on Wesker's agenda, become a potential reality when the past returns to threaten his plans. The discovery of the same virus that flows in his veins opens the door to redemption, or destruction. Wesker-centric.


Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil or any of the characters or plots associated with it. They belong to Capcom. Thank goodness.

Note: I am always a little nervous about creating Original Characters, let alone meshing them with pre-existing worlds, but I figured I would give it a shot. Be brutal, and be honest. This is nothing but an experiment. I wrote this quite some time ago, and posted it under another account, but finally decided to shift it over. This is pre-Resident Evil 5 knowledge.

* * *

"You aren't the only one."

Wesker glanced up, eyes widening briefly behind his concealing shades. Even with his enhanced hearing, he'd been unaware of anyone entering the room.

The other occupant was clad head to toe in black, similar to Wesker himself, but where the blonde's clothing was expensive and well-made, the stranger's garments were travel-stained and worn. Thin, graying hair barely covered a balding head, and spectacles perched on a nose that had been broken more than once.

Remaining completely at ease, Wesker raised an eyebrow questioningly, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

"Your virus," the stranger offered helpfully, lifting a withered hand to nervously smooth stray strands of hair in a nervous gesture. "The one Birkin gave to you."

Wesker was well aware of the power of silence, and thus he tapped into it now, fixing the man with a stare and not saying a single word. It was difficult resisting the urge to simply throttle answers out of the old man. But the stranger possessed dangerous information, and there lay the chance that Wesker would kill him before learning his source, and thus he waited for the inevitable explanation. After all, the man must have sought him out for a reason, and he could always kill him later.

Eventually, the stranger broke.

"He tested it before you," he said, shifting his stance and glancing at the door behind him with barely concealed urgency. Licking his lips, he stuffed his hands in his jacket pocket, then removed them almost immediately, fiddling with something folded and small nestled in the palm of one hand. "Several times, in fact, in several forms, to ensure its relative safety. He cared for you more than he ever let on."

"How do you know Birkin?" More dangerous information.

The question was ignored. The stranger seemed intent on speaking, on getting across whatever point it was bubbling on the end of his tongue, before his time ran out. "You know who he tested the final version on. You remember her. He did it on purpose. He knew you were growing attached, knew that you were growing more distant from him, and so he tried, but while he intended to fail…" His laughter was rough, more a bark than anything filled with delight.

"It still lays dormant, but it's there, the girl is still alive. You are well aware of that. You can feel, even now, the virus coursing through her veins, singing to you the way she used to create little songs for you in her room."

Wesker stiffened. "Who are you?"

"They lied to you, Wesker." The man shifted what was in his hand, a movement that might have been deft had age not taken its toll. "She didn't die in that fire."

Slowly, with the grace of a predator, Wesker unfolded himself from the chair, standing. This only made the stranger more anxious.

"Who are you?" the blonde repeated slowly, voice deceptively soft.

"A friend, though one short lived." Shaking his balding head, the man offered Wesker an envelope which had been folded in his hand. When the blonde did not take it, he left it on the table, carefully between the two of them. "They don't want you to know this, no doubt, but…the possibilities…if they were to get ahold of her first, such a waste…I've hidden her away…"

There was a loud sound from the hallway and the man flinched, quickly palming something else and swallowing it.

"They continue to deceive you. They've been waiting for the virus to quicken, but they grow impatient, moreso now that she's fallen off their radar. It is imperative that you get to her before they do."

"Who is this 'they' you speak of?" It was difficult for Wesker to mask his own impatience.

The man smiled. "You know," he murmured. "You know quite well." He motioned to the envelope. "Find her. Perhaps you can harvest a sample from her before it activates. You could create a cure, enhance it, or…"

Silence filled the room for a brief, tense moment before the man fell to the floor, convulsing. Wesker watched dispassionately as the stranger twitched and fell still, eyes staring unseeing.

The door burst open, and three heavily armed men bullied their way into the room, only nodding briefly to Wesker while one of their number examined the fallen man. The guards were conveniently late.

Giving in to a whim, and the curiosity niggling at his skin, Wesker sauntered to the table and carefully scooped up the envelope, movements quick enough that none of the others noticed. Slipping it into his pocket, he leaned against the bookcase, affecting an air of discontent.

"I'm very sorry for the intrusion, sir," the guard said after fingering the fallen man's pulse. He looked rather disappointed at what he found. "He should never have been allowed into the building."

"See to it that it doesn't happen again." Wesker knew that these men were well aware of the stranger's name, who he was and where he had come from, but he also knew that he would not receive any of that information. He could force it out of them, of course, but that would create issues he did not wish to deal with. His employer would be displeased, and Wesker was not yet ready to break away.

Besides, mysteries seldom remained unraveled once they were in his hands. He would have his answers. Wesker had always been a patient man.

He continued to watch as the guard spoke into a walkie-talkie, received orders to remove the body, and casually slung the stranger over his shoulder as if he were no more important than a sack of grain. He and one other managed to escape, but Wesker rested a hand on the youngest one's shoulder, halting him.

"How did he get into the building?"

"The doctor had security clearance."

Interesting. "Doctor?"

The man flushed, looking away. "He…"

"Abrams! Are you coming?"

After a moment's hesitation, Wesker let him go. Then his eyes fell on the spot the stranger had died in, and he sighed.

Wesker rarely slept and, as such, rarely dreamed.

It had been fourteen hours and sixteen minutes since he'd received the mysterious envelope. Instead of opening it, he'd placed it on his nightstand, and had settled down for a few hours of meditation. It helped keep his mind clear and focused, sharpened his discipline and, above all, was relaxing.

However, Wesker's eyes soon grew heavy, and he was swallowed by a dream that hadn't visited him in years.

She had been young for a researcher, like most who had been recruited by Umbrella, and had stared in wide-eyed awe at the older researchers as she was brought through the halls and shown where she would be staying for her duration at the lab. There was no initiation at Umbrella, no buddy system, and each researcher was expected to find their way around on their own.

Which was how she'd wound up in the nearly empty library, staring up at Wesker with those clear green eyes, flustered and pink and stammering.

The dream deviated from reality here, as it always did. Instead of showing her to her room, treating her more like an object than a person as he was wont to do and beginning what would become an incredibly rare attachment of sorts, their surroundings turned to fog. Dark gray clouds boiled out of the walls, erupting from the windows and the books, and there was a distant murmuring drifting to their ears, something between a gibbering and a screaming that was almost musical in nature.

"Albert," she whispered as her flesh burned away from her skin. "Help me."

He was powerless to move, his feet rooted to the ground, tendrils from the fog holding his arms at his sides. Opening his mouth, he tried to speak, but something noxious was shoved in, blocking his tongue, his airways, choking him.

"Albert, please."

Those green eyes melted, the pale hair cracking and turning black before flaking away, torn away by the breeze. Soon, nothing was left in her place but a pile of ashes, but her voice remained, trailing on the wind.

"Albert, please…"

Typically, he would awaken here, sweaty and with labored breath, but this time, the dream refused to relinquish its hold. This time, he found himself on his knees, fists pounding into the ground, emotions that he worked hard to suppress boiling over and coating him in her blood.

Albert Wesker screamed.

This time, the surroundings changed once more, becoming a dark, dismal hotel room that had seen better days. Faded wallpaper was peeling from the walls, the ceiling around the light was cracked and pockmarked, and the furnishings were old and worn, looking almost as if they had weathered too many centuries underwater. She lay in the sagging bed, pale and sickly, brow slick with the sweat that came with high fevers.

Wesker pushed himself to his feet and approached the bedside, ignoring the way something beneath his feet crunched, as if he were treading on bones. She looked as young as she'd been when they'd first met, true to dream logic, but there was pain etched on her features, as if she suffered greatly.

He reached out, bare hand cool against her forehead, and frowned.

"Albert?" She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "You came back…I knew you would…"

Wesker said nothing.

A grimace crossed her features, and she whispered, "Help me."

_Help me_, a voice echoed, and immediately he was back at the beginning, standing in that library, and there she was, watching him with such naked trust in her eyes that his first inclination was to crush it, to crush _her_, to avoid all the problems whose creation lay at her feet. But he hesitated, and his chance was gone. Her hand slipped into his, and he knew he was lost.

He awoke calmly, sitting up and running his fingers through his hair. Reaching out, he grabbed the envelope, staring down at it, unnatural eyes making out the writing on the outside despite the lack of light.

"What am I doing?" He should burn the envelope, destroy the contents and pretend they'd never fallen into his hands. She'd been dead to him for a decade.

But again he hesitated, and again he went against his instincts. Again, the dream cried out to him with her voice.

Ripping open the envelope, he pulled out a letter, a piece of scrap paper, and a photograph of a smiling young woman. Setting the papers aside, Wesker focused on the picture, knowing who she was before reading the back of it.

"Eleanor." The date on the back indicated that the picture was recent, and the scribble at the bottom told him it had been taken in Manhattan. Flipping it over again, he studied the photo, and felt nothing. Those years he'd spent with her, opening up to her, allowing her a place no one else had, seemed as if they'd occurred to someone else. It had been too long, he'd become far too disciplined.

But if the stranger was to be believed, she harbored the same virus he had. That, if nothing else, kept him from throwing everything out.

The scrap paper contained an address in lower Manhattan, presumably her place of residence. The letter was considerably longer, spanning a good five pages, and a quick scan showed that it told the same story as the stranger who had died in his office.

As well as much, much more.

Wesker poured over the letter for hours, meticulously deconstructing it, pulling all meaning out of the words, and reading the message hidden within. It was, in a way, a distraction from the stirring in his chest that indicated that his focus stemmed from more than his interest in the virus. Perhaps not every shred of his humanity had bled out onto that cold tile floor. Perhaps…

Here, in his hands, lay the key to unlocking secrets that had for so long eluded him. Here was the opportunity to allow samples to mutate, to dilute and enhance them, and to use them as leverage to increase his own power.

Perhaps…

Wesker's breath caught.

_Eleanor_ _is alive_.

"Why do you always wear sunglasses?"

The question was innocent, but the direction was not. Considering the girl was bare as the day she was born despite huddling beneath the blanket, and his own current state of undress, her words carried a surprisingly heavy weight.

"I like them."

"You never take them off."

He grunted in reply, toying with a lock of her hair. When she reached for the sunglasses, he swatted her hand aside, but even that action was gentle. She was a soft creature, delicate, wholly unsuited for her work at Umbrella Corp.

In part, anyway. There were times she displayed a callousness that shocked everyone around her, but she was still convinced that she would be able to take the research, the information learned in the labs, and apply them to make a positive change in the world. She remained deliberately oblivious to the uses Umbrella planned to make of their experiments, something which earned her derision and jeers. But while she wasn't a prodigy, no one could deny her talent.

"I want to see your eyes."

Wesker fixed her with a stare, though the weight of it was lost on her. "Why is it so important to you?"

"Don't you trust me?" There was that look from her again, the one that spoke that she knew far more than she let on, that she _understood_ things she didn't especially like but wasn't willing to discount. There were layers to the girl he hadn't unraveled yet, though every time he discovered a new depth, he found himself more delighted.

There was potential in Eleanor that had thus far remained untapped. And here she was, _his _toy to play with.

"What does trust have to do with it?"

"Everything." She leaned in, grazing her teeth against his neck, giggling softly at his sharp exhalation. "Take them off."

"No."

"You've taken everything else off."

"With your help." His hand slid up her thigh, a diversionary tactic, but she shifted away from his touch.

"Then let me."

"No."

"Albert…"

He gritted his teeth, the feelings pressing against his chest unfamiliar, suffocating. He didn't know what it was about her, but…

When she raised her hand again, reaching towards his sunglasses, he didn't stop her.

"There. Was that so bad?"


End file.
